I want to start by thanking Deputy Gould and his office for bringing forward this legislation and for all of the work they do and continue to do on this serious issue. When people look in at the proceedings of the Dáil, at least they see that some people are interested in taking action on dereliction. They also see the Government and its complete lack of interest in it. I am struggling a little to understand what point the Minister is trying to make. On the one hand he told us that the legislation that exists is good and is fit for purpose. On the other hand he tells us that we all have to wait because the Government is bringing in new legislation. I am also struggling to understand the reluctance to enact this sensible legislation, which, as has been outlined already, will not fix all of the problems the Government has created and the disaster it has made of housing, but will make a contribution. In truth, if the Minister was interested in solving the problem of dereliction, he would be listening to Deputy Gould and working with Deputy Gould but he is not. His script, as he read it out to us this evening, tells me exactly that. There is a level of arrogance there that I do not think belongs in the mouth of a person who has presided over 17,000 homeless people, 6,000 of whom are children. A little bit of humility might go a long way. I understand that is not necessarily how he wants to be. He should reflect on where we are because he has been in some form of government - confidence and supply and all the rest of it - for ten years. In those ten years, we have seen so many lives destroyed by the Government's housing crisis. The housing crisis has been created by Government policy. It has not been solved by Government policy and I am sure not even the Minister would be arrogant enough to try to claim that. Of course, it has got worse. Numbers and facts do not lie. The Minister certainly could not come in here and claim to have any achievements in the area of housing while there are 17,000 people in emergency accommodation. The Minister and I both know that is an underestimation of the actual number of people who do not have somewhere secure to live. As we all know, somewhere secure to live is so important. It means that you can build every other aspect of your life. Yet, there are thousands and thousands of people who do not have somewhere secure to live. They cannot start a family. They cannot build their lives. They cannot get their career going. They are stuck. They are stuck in their ma's back bedroom. They are stuck in overcrowded accommodation. They are stuck sofa surfing or they are saving for a one-way ticket to Australia. The Minister said himself that dereliction is a form of antisocial behaviour. It causes antisocial behaviour. It causes dumping. If a person is living in an estate where there is a derelict house - I doubt there are too many of them in the leafy suburbs surrounding here but there are plenty in the area that I represent - as sure as night follows day there will be black bags in the front garden. There will be kids messing in it and broken windows. All of those things happen. It is then left there for years. I had a woman in my clinic on Monday who lives in a small three-bedroom house in Balbriggan. It is herself, her husband, her daughter, their four children and two sons, one of whom has a partner and another who has occasional access to his child. That is ten, 11, 12 and sometimes 13 people living in a small modest house. She asked me a fairly simple question as to why there was a boarded-up house down the road from her. She named the number and has been onto the council plenty of times about it. What is the answer? Government policy is that is fine and that there is no urgency to get rid of that boarded-up house. There is no urgency to turn that into a home for her daughter and four children who are in one room, that is, a mam and four kids in one small bedroom. She looked at that derelict house and had a very simple question as to why that house was still derelict. She asked why she had to walk past that when she goes to work every single day when she knows it would be perfect for her daughter and her daughter would keep it well. Her neighbours ask the same questions such as why there are rats running in and out of that house and why that house is derelict in the middle of a housing crisis. Why is that, when the Minister says he is going to war on dereliction? Going to war, is it? It does not feel like he is going to war. It feels like he is quite all right with dereliction and thinks it is okay because it can wait. The claim he is going to war on dereliction would be funny if it was not so bloody serious. He is not fighting for ordinary people in his war. He is fighting against ordinary people in his war. He is not fighting for people who need somewhere to live in his war. He is fighting against those people but he is prepared to put up a fairly substantial fight to ensure that any levies that are collected will not be collected this year or next year and possibly will not be collected the year after that. All of that can wait. Meanwhile, people who have nowhere to live, are living in overcrowded accommodation, emergency accommodation, hubs or hostels and who cannot start their lives look at vacant and derelict houses and buildings and ask themselves a simple question, "How is that allowed to happen?" It is because the Minister facilitates it. He says he thinks it should be crime. He is in the Government for Jesus's sake. If he wanted it to be a crime, he would be talking to the Minister for justice but he does not. That is just something that he says. He says that he wants it to be crime. It is not. He is in the Government. Any Government that has presided over 17,000 homeless people is clearly not pulling every single lever and is not talking to every single Member of the Opposition and the Government for ideas because clearly, the Minister does not have any. What he has tried has not worked. He could not come in here and claim to be a success story. I am sure he would not. I am sure he is ashamed. I am sure that when he goes home and thinks about those 17,000 people, including 6,000 children, he is a little bit ashamed. However, if he was serious about it, he would be talking to Deputies Gould and Ó Broin and other people on the Opposition benches and on his own benches. He would try everything and anything if he was serious about tackling the scourge of dereliction. Does the Minister not see how inadequate is his proposal that we wait until 2027 or 2028 until money starts coming in or maybe even after that? Does he not understand? What if a person like that mam was looking in here - I told her that we would be having a debate today so she might be watching and I certainly will tell her to look back on the debate - was to hear him talking about his war on dereliction? She would ask me what does the war on dereliction mean and when is the war coming to Balbriggan. She would ask me when is the Minister bringing his war on dereliction to the people of Balbriggan. It is possibly 2027 or maybe 2028. Jesus Christ. Regarding the mental ill health that people suffer from living in overcrowded accommodation, imagine listening to the Minister. There is no sense of urgency coming from him at all. He had a few potshots at the Opposition and that is fine. It a bit of ding-dong and back and forth. He did not offer anything that tells me that he believes or understands that there is a crisis now. There are people who are making shed loads of money out of this crisis. The Ministers knows that there are people making shed loads of money and he is okay with that. Shame on him.

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And it is the same from the Minister. There is rising homelessness, the same as every month. If he was doing his job, we would not have anything to-----

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